Thanks!yeah that is quite a strange thing about his strat, I read that wood had to be replaced under and to the side of the pickguard at some stage, id imagine the neck pickup route may have cracked to the left side, and a new piece of wood was glued in, that horizonal scratch you see is in fact the glue joint. I think it happened fairly early on in the guitar's life, as it is visible in photos from the Taste days..

Do any of you guys know what the neck is like on Rory's original? Is it a thick C shaped neck as you see on the Hot Rod '62 strat that fender makes today or is it a normal "thinner" C shaped neck? And what about the neck profile? Annoying 7.25 radius or a playable 9.5 radius? The Rory Gallagher custom shop strat is supposed to have a normal 9.5 radius neck but that wasn't used back in 1961 was it?

Andersen28 wrote:Do any of you guys know what the neck is like on Rory's original? Is it a thick C shaped neck as you see on the Hot Rod '62 strat that fender makes today or is it a normal "thinner" C shaped neck? And what about the neck profile? Annoying 7.25 radius or a playable 9.5 radius? The Rory Gallagher custom shop strat is supposed to have a normal 9.5 radius neck but that wasn't used back in 1961 was it?

I'm not exactly really knowlegable on vintage strats, but I'd imagine Rory's was the same spec as the 59' strats.(well as far as I remember, Fender changed their strats slightly come '62, so as Rory's was a 61 it would still have the old spec)

A guy i made a Rory body for just sent me a photo of his finished project, he spent over €5000 on it, the neck is an original '61,which cost €3000 alone! and all the plastic parts are Pre- CBS! i think it turned out really well